Introduction
Version 3.0.0 of our forum software (phpBB) has new features that many of you will be interested in, some of which may significantly enhance your 'forum experience'. This topic introduces some of the more notable changes.One important thing to note is that there are a variety of controls that you can use to tailor the forums to suit your needs. You can access them by logging into the CHGPA forums and clicking on the User Control Panel (UCP) link near the top left. These controls replace the forum 'Profile' that you might be familiar with from previous versions of phpBB.
NOTE! Some phpBB3 features will be limited to forum users who are CHGPA club members (if not now, then fairly soon). Attachments, Private Messaging, PM drafts, saving posts as drafts, and editing posts are likely to be involved. More details about member/non-member forum privileges will be provided in future topics.
Additional posts will be made here as new features are implemented, so you might want to check back on this topic from time to time (or bookmark it, see below).
New Look and Feel
You will see that the look and feel of our forums has changed quite a bit. Personally, I like the changes, but I realize that others will disagree. No worries though! The management of forum 'styles' is much easier with phpBB3, so I've installed a style called subsilver2 which emulates the appearance of the forum under phpBB2. If you don't like the new style, give subsilver2 whirl:User Control Panel -> Board preferences -> My board style -> subsilver2
Caveat: If I have to make a tweak to the forum that is style-dependent, I might choose to do so only for the new (prosilver) style, simply because of demands on my time. I'll try to remember to announce such things, so that users of other styles will know what they are missing out on.Friends & Foes
If there are certain forum users who are friends of yours, you can specify them as such, and this will provide you with more direct methods for accessing their posts, sending them PMs, and checking whether they are online or not.If you don't want to see some of the content posted by specific forum users, you can add them to a list of 'foes'. In forum topics with posts from one of your foes, only the fact that s/he has posted will be shown (who and when). A link is provided that will allow you to view the person's post in its entirety, if you decide it is worth your time.
To use Friends & Foes, login and access the User Control Panel (see Introduction), and then click on the Friends & Foes tab. Adding people to these categories is pretty straightforward. Note that by using 'Find a member', you can search for and select multiple people, and add them as Friends or Foes with a single click.
Reporting Posts
We don't have a many rules here in the CHGPA forums, but my personal mantra is 'keep it on-topic, keep it courteous' . If you see a post that is not appropriate to the forum in which it is located, or if a topic has degenerated to the point at which people are hurling insults at each other, you can now report this to the forum moderators.When viewing a post, look for the icon with the red exclamation mark. Mouse over it, and the description 'Report this post' will be displayed. If you click the icon the post will be reported.
BUT! Please be aware that we don't have lots of people jumping up to volunteer as moderators. Until/unless that happens, these reports all go to me, and my time is limited. So please do NOT use this feature unless you honestly believe that a great majority of our users would agree with you that a post should be reported.
And I absolutely will not tolerate tit-for-tat reporting on each other, by people who are engaged in a flamefest. That sort of thing will get everyone involved banned from the forums for a few weeks.
Bookmarking of Forum Topics & Posts
Lots of content flows through our forums. Perhaps you've noticed a topic that you think is particularly fun, or that you want to reply to at a later date, or that you want to save for an issue that you are researching.You can now collect/bookmark such topics with one click. After finding a forum topic of interest, scroll down to the very bottom of the page and you will see a 'Bookmark topic' icon/link. Click on it, and the topic will be added to your personal collection of bookmarked forum topics. Here's a screenshot:
Repeat the process to collect a few bookmarks. Then go to the User Control Panel (UCP) and click the 'Manage bookmarks' link in the left panel. All your bookmarked topics are displayed, and you can visit them at your convenience. If you use a browser like Firefox, you can right-click on several bookmarks of interest, opening them simultaneously in separate browser tabs.
Bookmarks can be removed from the Manage bookmarks screen, or, within the forums, by clicking 'Remove from bookmarks' at the very bottom of the page for a topic that you previously bookmarked.
New Private Message (PM) Capabilities
There are a slew of new capabilities for Private Messages, I'm not even going to try to describe them in detail. But here are a few of the highlights:- You can send PMs to multiple recipients. If you have 'Friends' defined, you
can add them as recipients with a click. Use:
UCP -> Private messages tab -> Compose message - You can define 'Rules' to automatically route an incoming PM to specific
folders, or to discard it altogether, based on a variety of criteria. Use:
UCP -> Private messages tab -> Rules, folders, and settings
More Options for Viewing Topics/Posts
You can now configure the forum to display topics and posts in various ways. For example, if you want a somewhat 'cleaner' and less cluttered look, you can chose to disable the display of avatars, signatures, images.And you can specify that topics/posts be sorted by subject, author, or the date/time of the post, in ascending or descending order.
All of these options are available at:
UCP -> Board preferences tab -> Edit display options
Ability to Save and Edit Posts
A carefully crafted forum post sometimes requires significant time to create. With phpBB3, it is now possible to save a not-yet-completed post as a 'Draft'. Just click on the 'Save' button that appears at the bottom of the window where you compose the post. Confirm that you want to save the post (rather than submitting it to the forum). At a later time, you can access the saved draft and resume your work:UCP -> Overview tab -> Manage drafts
Under previous versions of phpBB, we did not enable the feature that allows users to edit posts, because there was no tracking of the fact that an edit had occurred. But now, this information is tracked (who & when), and it is possible to add a reason for the edit (why). With this new functionality, I'm finally more comfortable with allowing users to edit posts, though we might restrict that to users who are CHGPA members. It will take a little time to set this up (couple weeks, depending), so please be patient.Much More To Come!
I expect that we will be adding additional forum features after the developer community for phpBB3 modifications has had a chance to upgrade their software. Top of the list: Email delivery of forum posts (delivery only, no email reply) and an RSS/ATOM newsfeed.In the meantime..... Enjoy!
MarkC